Re: ?Naro cel ei nau cepoa sia? ['naru,gil enQ,gibua'Za]

> Um, no...  |em tau| will sandhize into [intQ], which in turn
> is a legal cluster.  Inside a word, you don't have any active
> sandhi going on, so the cluster must be legal to begin with.
> You couldn't have a single word like |emtau|.
So, I'm going to present an alternative set of rules for Oro Mpaa
cluster formation.  Consider it an analysis based on observation.  Here
goes!

Oro Mpaa has a sonority heirarchy like so, from most sonorous to least:
Vowels
Glides
Laterals/Rhotics
*Foo
Voiceless Fricatives
Nasals
*Bar
Voiceless Stops

The ranks *foo and *bar represent voiced fricatives and voiced stops,
respectively.  Though these do not exist phonemically in modern OM, they
nevertheless affect cluster formation restrictions.  Rather than
discussing in terms of syllable structure, I'll talk in terms of cluster
structure.  Thus, rather than working from sonority maxima, I'll work
with sonority minima.  Furthermore, I'll use 'occlusivity' as the
inversion of sonority, so that I can talk about clusters as peaks.

Oro Mpaa has these consonants:
p       t       k
f       s       x
m       n       N
The above, I'll call "strong consonants".
r       l
These are "weak consonants".
j       w
These are glides.


Any consonant can be doubled.

1. All the strong consonants in a cluster must be homorganic with the
most occlusive segment.
2. There can be a nasal OR a weak consonant before a stop peak.
        2.1 A weak+stop combination cannot be followed by any more
consonants.
3. Following a consonant, there can be a consonant of lesser
occlusivity, provided that they are separated by three ranks.  (/ts/ is
legal, but not /tn/.)
        3.1 /l/ cannot follow something of greater occlusivity.
4. A glide can appear before or after any cluster, subject to the
restriction of 3.
        4.1 The /j/ glide is unpronounced following /t/ and /s/; it
palatizes them instead.
        4.2 The /w/ glide is unpronounced following /t/ and /s/ AND
preceding /i/.
        4.3 A pronounced glide must be adjacent to a vowel.
5. An illegal cluster can be "rescued" by inserting a stop in between,
if the second consonant permits it.

---
Shreyas Sampat